Enter a music shop these days and the first thing that will happen is this… After a respectful period of time to acclimatise to the well lit environs and pleasant low volume clatter, tinkle & hum of assorted instruments being respectfully put through their paces, you’ll be greeted by a helpful shop assistant asking if you were ok or if they can give you any advice. Which leads one to immediately raise the not unrealistic question in one’s own mind; what sort of tomfoolery, skulduggery and out and out weird buggery is this?
I don’t expect my general health or well-being to be in anyway an item of concern for the patch bearded, heavily tatted beanpole sales ‘consultant’. Nor am I in anyway expecting any sort of advice from him on anything. Have I stumbled into MacDonalds for music? Is this the KFC of Rock?
When I go into a music store I expect the following five things to be present without fail.
1 – A deafening wall of sound to be emanating from the back of the shop, where the three shop assistants are storming through a set of quite ludicrously precise King Crimson covers.
2 – A small but uncompromisingly menacing coterie of girl friends and leather clad proto Hells Angels are listening with one ear whilst rolling up the largest doobie to have been constructed since Jimi rolled a whopper at Monterey (Please insert your own ‘maan!’ exclamation at this point).
3 – The overpowering stench of stale cigarettes, Lynx (for gits) and burnt rizlas mingling with the smell of damp carpet and overflowing toilet.
4 – A wall covered with flying V’s and Gibson Les Pauls, another wall packed with studded straps and skull ‘n cross bone motif gig bags and one wall with a broken glass cabinet propped in front of it featuring a till, an entry level Kays Kiddiecaster (sans strings/neck/pickups) lying underneath a sheaf of unpaid invoices and an ashtray made out of the remains of a melted wah-wah pedal.
5 – A small stand featuring sheet music, balsa wood acoustic guitars recorders & melodicas.
Nothing else!
I don’t expect help, information, a wide array of mint condition Rickenbackers, Gretschs & Fender Jaguars to choose from! I expect to be ignored, sneered at, ripped off and dismissed. So, I am starting a ‘campaign for the return to arsey music/persecution shops with obligatory longhaired stroppy muso shop assistants who belittle you at every turn!
CRAMPS begin here!
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